By Ms. Tamara Payne-Alex (left), Ministerial Fellowship CommitteeTo Belletini's sermon.
It is my honor and pleasure to welcome our ministers into Preliminary Fellowship and Final Fellowship with the Unitarian-Universalist Association. On behalf of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee I wish to recognize and celebrate your work, your commitment, your growth, and your achievement.
As a lay member of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee I await with great expectation and confidence your contributions to our movement and to the lives and spirits of individuals both within our Association and in the larger community. I have this confidence in your ministries because I and the other members of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee have seen that promise shimmer and dance in the recommendations from your UU colleagues, the testimonies of those your have already served, and in your written reflections as you struggle and grow in your call to ministry. It has lit the room and our spirits during your candidate interviews.
Many folks have offered condolences to me during my five years on the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, saying that they do not envy our work. It is true that the meetings take me away from my family for 5 days four times a year and that there are moments of aching sadness following a disappointing review of a candidateís progress. But I also get to experience the sting of unshed tears as I read a candidate's essay which moves and touches me. I cherish the flutter of excitement I get as I read of the skill and depth already demonstrated by a new minister serving a parish, community, or agency. Or the resounding "yes!" I feel as a student finally names that which has been stifling and weighing down their spirit and their ministry.
"And how do you know a minister when you see one?" people ask. "How can you be confident in your discernment?"
My confidence lies in the fact that I do not discern alone. My perceptions and observations are joined by the astounding depth of knowledge, skill, experience and insight of my fellow MFC members. And there are other entities which elbow in to share my seat in a candidate interview and huddle close to read over my shoulder as I review packets and renewals. These are the spirit presences of the Unitarian-Universalist ministers who have served me over my lifetime, and, as a birthright UU, there have been many. I know a minister when I see one because my life has been touched in many and profound ways by my Unitarian-Universalist ministers.
A Unitarian-Universalist minister married my parents, a Black man and a White woman, at a time when it was illegal in many states for them to be in the same company. Another UU minister provided a familiar, comforting place of worship and companionship in the midst of a strange city for my mother, a young wife with two small children and a husband who had been sent to Vietnam, for the second time. There was the minister who beamed encouragingly at me as I stood in his pulpit at age twelve to deliver my first sermon, ever so carefully printed out on three by five cards. There were the UU ministers at Commonground, at District Youth Conferences and at Star Island. The minister who took my sister and me roller skating. And the Unitarian-Universalist minister who stood next to my father as he lay in a coma, stroking his hand and describing in perfect detail what I was wearing so he might see me against the landscape of wherever he was during those long scary weeks.
And there are dozens of others. Some of these ministers I can see sitting among you. Others are no longer with us. All of their spirits and works are blended into a multi-faceted presence which never leaves me and is powerfully felt in my work on the Ministerial Fellowship Committee. It is through them I know ministry. It is through them I know the power of what you are yet to do, must do, and will do.
You join them now.
Go forward with purpose, with faith, with love. Learn from each other and from those who have shaped and breathed life and light into our ministry and our tradition. Carry with gentle and work-calloused hands your shimmering, dancing flame out into our congregations, our communities of need, and the world.
